In a special meeting Thursday of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, two board members whose terms expired on May 1 participated and voted in board proceedings.
Noted: American Girl’s lead designer for the Girl of the Year series, Rebecca DeKuiper, lived near Monona Terrace in 2014, and Walkowicz’s attorney believes she and other American Girl employees attended Walkowicz’s talk and were inspired to use Walkowicz as the basis for a new doll.
In October 2016, Walkowicz was back in Madison taking part in Space Place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and led activities for parents, and did more outreach in Trempealeau and LaCrosse.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents on Thursday held a special meeting Thursday, voting to waive test score requirements for incoming freshman, discussing campus reopening plans and providing an update to the search for the next UW System president.
On any list of the top 50 sports moments in the United States over the past 50 years, Miracle On Ice will inevitably be near the top, if not No. 1.
Quoted: “The question I have is why they should be going to court at all,” University of Wisconsin Law School constitutional law professor David Schwartz said. “(GOP lawmakers) are asking the court to basically rewrite this law — to turn it into something much narrower than it is.”
When Soyeon Shim was young, she wanted to be a teacher.
“I’d come home and gather all the kids in the neighborhood and play like we were at school and I was the teacher,” she says.
For a girl growing up in South Korea, there weren’t many other options. “Teacher or nurse,” Shim says. “But in the back of my mind, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.”
The leader of the University of Wisconsin System will unveil Thursday a three-part plan that radically re-imagines the network of schools that has been in place for a half-century.
Two months have passed since coronavirus first began major disruptions to American society, and the nation still lacks a clear timeline back to “normalcy.”
Noted: Pallen graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in communications arts and advertising. Beer was always in his bloodline — and, occasionally, his car.
Noted: EatStreet, co-founded by Howard in a University of Wisconsin-Madison dorm room in 2010, has around 150 employees in its Madison headquarters. More than 15,000 restaurants in 250 cities are on the platform.
Quoted: “The fact that we are not seeing those from one community cropping up in the other community suggests that the stay-at-home orders are working,” said David O’Connor, a UW professor of pathology and laboratory medicine.
Quoted: Tash and Brown’s comments get an endorsement from Kathleen Bartzen Culver, who directs the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
A government loan doesn’t automatically cause a conflict of interest, she said. But “I would . . . ask what [a] local news organization will do to counteract any potential conflict.” Her suggestion: “Any news organization that takes funds should report on that and reassure readers that they will continue to see fair, hard-hitting reporting, including on the government’s approach to an economy wrecked by an epidemic.”
Quoted: That non-verbal communication is complicated if a mask covers half of your face. If others are unable to see your mouth, they’re left to guess how you’re feeling, said Dr. Shilagh Mirgain, a health psychologist with the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health.
“When we don’t get that nonverbal feedback, we feel more distance from one another, [and] it makes the other person feel less safe,” she said.
Quoted: “In the end of the day, there is only the same number of people wiping their, um, you know what,” said Troy Runge, the chair of the biological systems engineering department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “The presence of a minor party candidate can affect who wins an election,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of its elections research center. “My research on prior minor party candidates for president indicates that between 25% and 60% of their support is from people who would not have voted.”
Quoted: Director of the Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Sandra Newbury, who has been conducting research on how COVID-19 impacts animals, stressed that the news is no reason to panic.
“We really don’t want people to freak out in general,” Newbury said. “In fact, it looks like dogs are not very good hosts for the virus … Most dogs that have tested positive have been asymptomatic.”
Quoted: UW-Madison anticipated a freshmen class of roughly 7,300 students, nearly 3,700 of those students would be in state.
André Phillips, director of admissions and recruitment at UW-Madison, said they should be able to surpass the 7,300 students anticipated by at least 100.
“We’ll likely have several hundred students that we’ll work with throughout the month of May leading up to the June 1 deadline, and that’s pretty significant,” Phillips said.
Quoted: Song Gao, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been aggregating cell phone data that shows how far Wisconsinites are traveling each day as a way to understand if residents are following the state’s “Safer At Home” order. Gao said residents’ mobility has been reduced significantly in the past month, especially in urban areas like Dane and Milwaukee counties.
But he has seen increased movement around Wisconsin starting last week
“I think this is also linked with last week’s events. Like people started getting (outside) and also last Friday, they also had some protests outside the state Capitol,” Gao said.
Quoted: “You’ve certainly seen in places that stopped isolation measures too early — what the flu pandemic did in those places,” said Dr. James Conway, an infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and a self-described history buff.
New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that contrary to government guidelines, asthma may not put a person at increased risk for severe COVID-19, but may, in fact, offer some protection against it.
Quoted: Jim Conway, an infectious disease expert and associate director for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, argued loosening restrictions regionally is a short-sighted idea.
“It’s like being in a swimming pool and having one area of the pool that it’s OK to pee in,” he said.
Conway said because the economy relies on travel in many sectors, there would be no way to ensure new cases weren’t brought to areas with few cases and few restrictions under a regional plan — especially in a state like Wisconsin with a lot of recreational tourism in rural areas.
University of Wisconsin officials do not expect to extend for the second time the deadline to buy season football tickets for 2020.
State campuses in Milwaukee and Madison unveiled more information on their plans to furlough employees this week, with the aim of mitigating the mounting financial fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.
Quoted: But James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, called opening different regions of the state at different times “terrifying.”
“It’s almost like the least common denominator will prevail if you do start to allow certain areas to open more liberally and have other areas still confined because you know there’s going to be travel and transit between those places. And as we saw in the Green Bay area it doesn’t take much for something to go from a small number of cases to exponentially exploding in just a few short days,” said Conway, who supports Evers’ plan.
Quoted: “I think a lot of that first buying was people loading up and now I think that demand has decreased,” said Ronald Kean, a University of Wisconsin Extension poultry specialist. “Some of our large egg producers sell a lot of liquid eggs, but that has dropped off because that’s mostly used by restaurants and schools.”
Quoted: “It’s pretty clear that pushing the economy to go back to work before coronavirus is brought under control is going to be like being in a vehicle and pushing on the accelerator and the brake at the same time,” said Ian Coxhead, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Misleading people by providing real information divorced from necessary context is not a unique strategy, said Dave Schroeder, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who tracks disinformation on social media.
He’s been following how public health information on the COVID-19 pandemic is being “attacked by actors with an agenda” and twisted to suit certain narratives.
Noted: Aaron Olver is managing director of University Research Park in Madison. He is the former state Secretary of Commerce under former Gov. Jim Doyle.
Quoted: “It’s tempting to attribute that higher-than-expected number of cases to the election, but I think we have to be cautious,” said Dr. Patrick Remington, a former CDC epidemiologist and director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s virtually impossible to know whether that relationship is cause and effect.”
Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor of industrial engineering and infectious disease modeling expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he expected to see a spike in cases. But data from Milwaukee and Madison, he said, have shown only modest increases in coronavirus cases.
Noted: DJ Shawna, the official DJ for the Milwaukee Bucks and University of Wisconsin Badgers, said sticking to a routine is key to helping her get through this time.
“I wake up every morning around the same time, work out, meditate, and then tackle my project for the day,” she said. “I have been learning new DJ and production skills, making mixes, recording podcasts, reaching out to friends and family via FaceTime, reading, and making sure I get outside (safely) at least once a day.”
She is sharing her skills by legally live-streaming DJ sets and is raising money for Key to Change, which helps homeless families and individuals.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball program, which lost two members of its extended family last May, suffered another blow this month.
Noted: Born in Milwaukee in 1940, Miller was in Nicolet High School’s first graduating class in 1958. After earning a degree in drama and speech at the University of Wisconsin, he moved to Los Angeles to find a job in film and television. His first big break was serving as dialogue coach for legendary director Billy Wilder, in what effectively became a four-year apprenticeship.
If the WIAA decides to have a spring sports season, it won’t be able to host the state championships planned at the University of Wisconsin as originally scheduled.
In conservation circles, a litmus test for decisions often is expressed in a question: What would Aldo do (WWAD)?
Aldo is of course Aldo Leopold, the late, great University of Wisconsin professor, pioneer of wildlife management and supreme observer of nature and humankind.
The University of Wisconsin System released initial estimates on the cost of the coronavirus pandemic Sunday: $168 million across the state’s 13 campuses as of April 10.
In a move that wasn’t surprising, University of Wisconsin officials announced last week they had canceled all Badgers sports camps through Aug. 15.
That move, made in response to the coronavirus pandemic, will make evaluating recruits more difficult for UW coaches.
I never imagined when launching the UW Odyssey Project 17 years ago that a pandemic would shut down our face-to-face classes, postpone our exuberant May graduation, and leave our families at the poverty level and hurting badly.
Quoted: Dave Schroeder, an information technology strategist with the Division of Information Technology at UW-Madison, wrote in an email that controls like those outlined in the district’s email are “ways to use Zoom securely,” but added that “some of those can only be controlled by the person hosting the meeting.”
Think back to a month ago, when the sports world was first put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, we were talking about pushing the start of the Major League Baseball season back a month, the NBA and NHL going straight to the playoffs after a short hiatus, postponing the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for awhile and resuming spring football practice when the students returned to campus from spring break.
Boy, were we naive or what?
Noted: Located within the city, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is also taking steps in its outdoor spaces to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
UW-Madison spokesperson Meredith McGlone said the university has posted signs at outdoor locations, including Memorial Union, campus recreational fields and Picnic Point. Also, the university has removed some recreational equipment, like basketball hoops and volleyball nets.
“We understand everyone’s desire to spend some time outdoors staying active, especially as the weather is improving, but we share the concern about maintaining 6 feet social distancing while being outdoors and engaging in recreational activity,” McGlone said in a statement. “Now more than ever, Badgers need to look out for each other and for the most vulnerable members of our community.”
With sports on hold amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, J.J. Watt took to social media Thursday afternoon to provide a live weather update from Wisconsin.
Quoted: “From a public health perspective, this was counter to all good scientific evidence and advice right now for how to continue to curb the pandemic from having serious impacts in the state,” said Kristen Malecki, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “The fact that politics interfered with sound judgment and jeopardized public safety is something that should not be ignored.”
The University of Wisconsin will not allow seniors who competed in spring sports to pursue another season with the Badgers, the school announced Thursday.
Noted: Donny went to Brookfield East High School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He worked for multiple companies on the Chicago Board of Trade, before accepting his job in New York. He loved hiking and biking, and ran in several ultramarathons.
Noted: Plasma trials have received FDA approval and are already moving forward at medical centers including those affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and University of Wisconsin-Madison. The FDA has also approved the use of survivor plasma to treat patients on an experimental, compassionate basis.
Noted: Dávila graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison then served as a Spanish linguist in the U.S. Army before attending Marquette University Law School. He graduated the law school in 2011.
When a Saturn rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center half a century ago, it carried three astronauts and a lunar lander to take two of them to the moon’s surface.
When Journal Sentinel reporter Meg Jones went to visit former astronaut James Lovell to discuss the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13, she brought with her some special mementos.
Lovell moved to Milwaukee as a boy, graduated from Juneau High School and studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The NCAA overreacted in restoring a year of eligibility to spring sports students amid the coronavirus-related shutdown, University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said.
Quoted: Disability groups have sued in New York and Washington, which are two of 14 states with such ventilator triage guidelines and have guidelines “similar” to those proposed in Wisconsin, said Dr. Norman Fost, a UW-Madison bioethicist. “There’s probably going to be a lawsuit (here),” he said.
Dane County prosecutors believe the deaths of a physician and her husband may have been the result of a conflict with their daughter’s boyfriend brought on by a disagreement over social distancing.
Marquette University leaders announced Wednesday that the campus will furlough some 250 people after April 17, a temporary leave that will continue indefinitely.
As the University of Wisconsin-Madison joined universities around the country in shutting down dorms, classrooms and event venues because of the coronavirus pandemic, Jennifer Morzfeld found herself wading through a barrage of emails.
In the midst of finding out about her coursework, the junior political science and international affairs student got one message in particular that left her with a pressing concern, one that thousands of college students now face.
Quoted: That makes the real estate markets difficult to predict for industry experts like Mark Eppli, director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We have a lot of uncertainty and not a lot of data,” Eppli said.
Quoted: “I don’t think that for most people cat-to-human transmission is the most likely way that they would be infected, but I’d be very surprised if this was impossible,” said David O’Connor, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: For Alyssa Birkeland, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying political science and business, volunteering as a poll worker was an easy decision.
“I felt like it was my duty to volunteer, and hopefully relieve the stress,” she said.
But Birkeland, 21, still worried about the risk of contracting the coronavirus as people flock to the polls.
“It’s definitely a little bit of a concern, but I’m probably one of the best people to be put in that position,” she said. “I rather it be me than someone else.”
UW Health has an automated instrument capable of processing about 1,200 COVID-19 tests a day, or roughly four times the number that its lab now typically does.
The instrument has yet to be used for a single COVID-19 test.
UW Health’s lab, like others throughout the state, has been unable to get the chemicals, or reagents, needed to process specimens on the instrument.
Quoted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison joined the project last weekend and is expected to host one of the clinical trials.
The work in Madison will be led by William Hartman, UW Health assistant professor of anesthesiology. Hartman said Madison will be one of the clinical trial sites, though he could not say how many patients will participate.
“I think we can be very hopeful in that it has exhibited success with previous coronaviruses including SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome),” Hartman said, referring to the use of survivor plasma.
Quoted: Not only is social distancing impractical in prisons, they are places where “contagion is hard to avoid,” said Cecelia Klingele, an associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in criminal justice administration.
“People are given very little access in many prisons and jails to hygiene supplies from soap to toothpaste. Often, we ask prisoners to buy individual supplies,” she said. “There’s no easy access. They’re not washing their hands frequently and not bathing as much as we would hope.”
Quoted: James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, said allowing people to gather at polling locations during Tuesday’s spring election will also damage the effectiveness of state leaders’ message to stay away from each other to blunt the spread of coronavirus.
“It just seems really irresponsible to make this one giant exception,” Conway said in an interview. “I was a little naive a week or so ago in thinking, ‘Oh, they’ve got to realize they’ve got to delay.’ … And then time has crept on and I’m like, really? I am very concerned.”
